SUNY Oswego Artist-in-Residence Dahlia Bloomstone’s exhibit “Unless the Outcome is Income” is an immersive experience that connects Roblox gameplay and social commentary and includes its first interactive workshop today.
The exhibit in Hewitt Hall’s Whitebox Gallery will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 4 to Dec, 6, Tuesdays through Saturdays, except during Thanksgiving Break.
Bloomstone will also hold two interactive workshops throughout the semester where participants can come and join the Roblox game. The workshop “Pandemics Roblox” will take place from 5 to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 18, and 2 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 6, in the Hewitt Hall Screening Room, Room 27.
The Whitebox Gallery’s lights are dimmed to set the tone of the exhibit. Large-scale animation is projected on the wall with two touchscreens across from one another for viewers to enter and play the Roblox game Bloomstone has created.
Bloomstone’s process for creating any piece starts by being a living person. “I would say that even the technical process starts from me, like waking up every day and reading the news or looking at Reddit forums or even watching TikToks,” Bloomstone said. “It's like internet research, but it's also just part of living.”
To create the Roblox game, Bloomstone used Roblox Studios. “Roblox actually has an incredibly accessible gaming platform,” Bloomstone said. “That's how children are able to make such incredible games. It's an accessible platform, so you don't necessarily have to be like a programmer to make games in it.”
The game is available to play on any device that can access Roblox, or people can join on the tablets provided at the exhibit in Hewitt. Bloomstone’s game was recently rated 17+ for romantic themes and sensitive issues.
The animation projected in the Whitebox is a 14-minute video that follows a fish underwater, connecting ideas of anticapitalism and workers’ exploitation. This was Bloomstone’s longest animation she has created due to the resources Oswego has provided.
“I made this in Cinema 4D on a practical level,” Bloomstone said, noting it took her more than 10 days to render the animation.
The animation was inspired by the book “What a Fish Knows” by Jonathan Balcombe, which was given to Bloomstone by a friend in graduate school.
“[What a Fish Knows] is a really adorable book that advocates for fish rights and how smart they are and how they are treated so poorly,” Bloomstone said. “And I thought that might be a really kind of sad, but really basic metaphor for how workers are treated, like particularly service workers.”
Bloomstone drew from her own life experiences for the content of the exhibit and a lot of her work. After working her way through college, Bloomstone learned how to cope in her work environment by making art, and now by giving back to the community.
For the workshops, participants will first view a new video performance work, "Does that hurt the fish?," followed by a gameplay session together on individual devices of the Roblox game “Little Darlings, sick" while navigating pandemic-related ephemera in real time.
The workshops connect with Bloomstone’s themes, as participants can share their thoughts and observations in the game chat, while also considering how Roblox might represent a politically fraught, shifting platform that mirrors broader culture.
This exhibition includes themes of economic survival, erotic labor and geopolitical conflict. Viewer discretion is advised.